So you wanna write a story, a fan fiction eh?  And you’re asking me for advice on how to make a totally fictional character believable?

Well, sorry, you’ve come to the wrong place.

Wait, don’t stop now, keep reading, don’t go off in a huff.  What I mean is that I can’t tell you how to make a character believable.  But I can give you examples of how I do it!

Fair enough?  Okay, let’s get started.

First off, if you’re writing in an established genre of fan fiction, you’re halfway there.  It makes everything easy!  You’ve got your main characters already fleshed out for you and you don’t have to spend much time on them.  If you’re writing Beatles fanfic, the four lads from Liverpool are there for you on a plate.  In very simplistic terms, all you have to do is stay within their ready-made characters and you’re home free; you can foray a bit out of character, but not too far.  They weren’t angels by any means, they were complex, real, living, breathing human beings, so you’ve actually got a bit of leeway.  But don’t go doing anything like writing Ringo as Jack the Ripper, it simply won’t fly.  And remember that you’re writing about real people; be respectful of them.

Okay, so now the main characters (or even background characters, if you prefer) are ready for you.  Simple, now you can focus nearly your entire attention on your project, now you need to create a person out of thin air, give them thoughts and feelings, motivations and desires!  How on earth do you do that?

Come on!  You’re an astute judge of humanity!  You interact with people every day of your life, right?  The man behind the counter at the convenience store!  Your co-workers or classmates.  Your mother or father, sister or brother, significant other or spouse, your friends, even people you pass on the street!  You’ve observed people going about their daily existence all your life, and you’ve been going about yours at the same time.  So pull it together in your head, you can do this!  Take your observations and personal experience and mold that clay, form that impression!  You know how people react to situations, what motivates them, what makes them ‘tick’!

YOU can create your own personal Frankenstein!  It can be done, and you can do it!

Start your character as a stick figure, and breathe life into her.  (I’m going to say her because it’s easier to pick a sex for your character and run with that, but it could be a him for all I know, just bear with me, please.)  Picture her in your mind.  Is she tall, short, average?  Is she petite, buxom?  Is she young, old?  Is she blonde, brunette, redhead?  What color are her eyes?  You don’t have to describe all this, and certainly not all at once, but you need to have a firm idea of your character in your mind.  Reveal her to your audience as you see fit, over a period of time.

Just please, don’t write something like this: “Sarah Anne Jones brushed out her long blonde hair that fell to her waist and batted her long lashed blue eyes.  Her flawless complexion glowed with excitement and she smiled at her trim figure in blue miniskirt and lace top as she headed for the door and her much anticipated night out.”

Yuk.  Your readers don’t need to know all that in one fell swoop. 

It’s more interesting for your reader to read something like this: “Sarah brushed her hair and checked her appearance in the mirror.  She bit her lip and wondered if she should change into something else; she was looking forward to her night out and wanted to look her best, but a check of the clock revealed it was time to go.  She took a fortifying breath and left the house.”

Okay, in the second example, your readers don’t know what Sarah looks like, but instead of a caricature of a rather mindless valley girl, they’ve got a girl who’s a little worried about her appearance, hoping she looks her best for a night out.  Your reader is beginning to wonder where’s she going and who she going to see?  Tell your reader about the long blonde hair, the blue eyes and miniskirt as you get further into the story, but you don’t need to spill everything at once.  Keep a few secrets, let your reader wonder about her.  Reveal her gradually, and you have a hook into the story.  And while we’re on the subject, give her a few warts.  Don’t make her perfect.  Maybe she has a physical flaw, or an emotional hangup; something that makes her a ‘real’ person instead of a flawless and perfect human being.  There aren’t many of those around, seriously!  Your character needs to be believable, and a perfect human being just isn’t very believable, I’m afraid.

But I digress.  Let’s get back to the first bit of writing about her.  Remember how you’re picturing her?

Now that you have her image firmly in mind, what are her motivations?  Where does she ‘come from’, in terms of thought process?  Has she lived a rough life, or a life of comfort?  Even that little tidbit of information could give you a great deal of insight into your character’s motivations.  What does she want?  She can be a good girl or a bad girl or whatever you want her to be, you get to mold her as you see fit.  But it helps to have an idea of what’s behind those blue (or green or brown or hazel) eyes.  In fact, it’s imperative to know what your character is thinking, what stimulates her, what provokes her, what inspires her.  If you don’t know this, how can you write how she’ll react to a situation or what she’ll say?  You want to write a character who has depth and layers of ‘self’, you don’t want a stick figure with no more emotional depth than a salmon (i.e., swim upstream and mate). 

Unless, of course, that really is what you want to write, and you’re writing a short story with stick figures for characters.  But I don’t think you’ll get many readers past the first few paragraphs with that one!

So have fun!  But don’t be surprised if your character reveals herself to you as you write!  I had a character in a recent story who told me, halfway through the story, that she’d previously been married to what was then a minor character in the adventure!  Had to go back and fix it up so that the ex-husband had a somewhat bigger part earlier on.

I know, you’re probably scratching your head and saying “where’s this loon coming off, saying that a character in her story told her something like that?”. 

But you know, it’s the honest truth.  As you write, as you form your characters, as you breathe your life into them, your characters begin to come alive, and they’ll often take over and lead the direction of your writing.  Sometimes it’s difficult to keep hold of the steering wheel once they get their hands on it!  And sometimes they’ll absolutely argue with you.  You’ll want them to do ‘this’, and they’ll adamantly refuse.  They’ll tell you in no uncertain words that their character wouldn’t do ‘this’ to save their lives!

So be prepared!  At some point in the story, she or he or it will wrest control from your fingertips and that’s when the fun begins!  You’ve created a monster, and now you have to hold on for dear life and enjoy the ride!  It’s quite amazing, they can take you places you’ve never been before, and think up ideas you wouldn’t have given a second thought before the control disappeared from your keyboard.  To be honest, I’ve gone back and re-read a story that I’d written months before, and looked at it with one single thought in my head.  That thought is : “I wrote THAT?”  Sometimes it’s a little frightening, and I wonder where a certain idea, or a detour in the story, has come from!  Sometimes it’s brilliant, sometimes comical, sometimes just a little side track that added a little color to the story.  But it’s usually from ‘them’, the characters.

Believe me, I’ve sat at the keyboard a time or two, trying to steer the story one direction, with my character just as earnestly steering in a total opposite direction.  It’s often a case of a mental conversation.

Me: You want to do what????

Her: But if you let me do this, then I can……

Usually, the most fun comes when I let my characters have the wheel and sit back and see where they want to go. 

Anyway, start writing!  Mold your monster, breathe your life into it, stand back and watch it take its first few faltering steps.  Then watch out, because before you know it, your character will have insinuated herself into your life and will be badgering you to finish the story or to start a sequel, or suggesting things for her to do that you never thought of!

Cheryl Mortensen has been a Beatle fanatic since the 1960s, but somehow went on to other things in the late 1960s, only rediscovering her passion for "all things Beatle" in the late 1990s (and on into the new century).  She is a computer programmer and an avid photographer. (Concert photos of bands and performers is her favorite area -- ask her about her Ringo pictures!!)  Cheryl lives with her husband of 18 years (Mike), her German Shepherd (Sorsha), and a bunch of fish in the tank and the pond that they've never bothered to name.